


manibus

by songs



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam fiddles with the tool-box at his feet, setting his soda aside. Ronan’s gaze on him is constant, but not pressing. Soft as water. It should be strange, how effortlessly Ronan fits, here. In this starkly unbeautiful place, surrounded by ugly cars and grimy darkness, Ronan Lynch is seamless, inspecting here and there as Adam tinkers. It’s both easy and difficult to forget where Ronan came from, in these moments. Most of the Aglionby boys stake claim on being a quarter-French, or German, but then there is Ronan, who is half a dream— an ethereal, impossible, breathing dream, crouched just ten feet away from Adam, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	manibus

Adam could get used to this.

 

The easiness. The simplicity. For once, it’s not a game of yield and relent; Adam Parrish would know, as he’s played those games all his life. Stubborn Adam, rigid Adam, always spined with pride, yet always adapting. To Aglionby, St. Agnes. _Cabeswater,_ and perhaps Henrietta as a whole. Never a small step, always a leap.

 

With Ronan, it’s different: a quiet thing, a growing thing. Nights spent at the shop during after-hours, with Chainsaw and starlight flickering about. Tonight is one of those nights, actually; Ronan strides in just before midnight, without a word or greeting. There’s no dream-lotion this time, but he tosses something red and gleaming to Adam, who reaches out on instinct. A moment later, he smiles.

 

“Thanks,” he says, opening the can of Coke. These days, there’s a running gag amongst the lot of them. _Coca-cola boy._ Adam takes a sip. “No Chainsaw, today?”

 

“She wanted to play with Noah,” Ronan says, nose wrinkling. “Sometimes I wonder about her taste.”

 

Adam grins. “Can we have the wedding in Cabeswater?”

 

“I was thinking the Barns,” Ronan says. He leans against the body of a cherry Corolla, the one Adam’d been working on for the past couple hours. Adam almost makes a joke about Ronan’s taste— _just last week you wouldn’t even breathe next to the Hondayota, and yet._ But it seems kind of trite, so he stays silent.

 

Adam fiddles with the tool-box at his feet, setting his soda aside. Ronan’s gaze on him is constant, but not pressing. Soft as water. It should be strange, how effortlessly Ronan fits, here. In this starkly unbeautiful place, surrounded by ugly cars and grimy darkness, Ronan Lynch is seamless, inspecting here and there as Adam tinkers. It’s both easy and difficult to forget where Ronan came from, in these moments. Most of the Aglionby boys stake claim on being a quarter-French, or German, but then there is Ronan, who is half a dream— an ethereal, impossible, breathing dream, crouched just ten feet away from Adam, now.

 

Adam, once a sleeper. Ronan, always a dreamer. Here, they are both wide awake, hyperaware of every slant of space between them. Alone, but not lonesome: Adam has not felt lonesome for some time. _For your hands—_ perhaps it started there, in the hearts of his palms. But now it’s spread, to all the places he’s let Ronan reach.

 

Adam wants to reach back. Wants to learn, to know. Ronan is an expansive thing, a road of ley-line-set stones, and Adam itches to turn over each and every one. But it’s not a painful itch, more like a yearning. A candle-sort of feeling, warming, warming. _Burning._ Ronan moves closer, and Adam lets him.

 

He starts, “Say, Ronan.”

 

Ronan grunts, “Hm?”

 

_What do you see in me?_ Another trite question. An unfair one, at that. Adam goes on, “What do you want?”

 

Ronan stiffens, then. But he turns to look at him, with those clear-water eyes. “Where are you going with this, Parrish?”

 

Adam says, “The dreaming. Cabeswater. Do you want to let them go?”

 

Ronan is quick to answer, “No.” But then, he pauses. “Why, do you?”

 

Adam shrugs. “I did, at first,” he begins. “I’ve been ready, to…” His eyes meet Ronan’s. “To let everything go. From the start.”

 

“The start. You mean Aglionby?” Ronan asks. “Or…”

 

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Adam understands.

 

“I thought,” Adam says. “If I could get what I wanted, it didn’t matter what I’d have to give up. It was all… a means to an end.”

 

“Machiavellian,” Ronan comments.

 

“Maybe,” Adam agrees. He doesn’t drop his gaze. “But, the thing is… I’m not so sure, now.”

 

Ronan swallows. “Oh?”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“What’s changed?”

 

Adam laughs. “Nothing yet.” A beat. “But also, maybe everything.”

 

Again, “Where are you going with this?”

 

_What about you?_ Adam could ask. But he doesn’t. There are many things to be said, many things to explain. _I’m wide awake and I want you more than a dream,_ or— _Even if everything ends,_ this _doesn’t have to._ But Adam says none of it. Instead, he murmurs, “Thank you.”

 

Ronan tilts his head. “For _what?_ ”

 

_For everything._

 

“For this,” Adam says, gently. Then, he twines his hand into Ronan’s. He feels the other boy’s pulse, pointed and hammering. A song to match his own. Throbbing, lilting, and then: calming.

 

Ronan’s grip tightens, and Adam sighs. Content.

 

They stay like that, for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> my first traipse into this fandom! i finished the whole series in 3 days and this pairing made me BURN! comments always appreciated!! :)


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